So It Begins ....

There's always one telltale sign in our back yard that fall is on the way. It's not the autumn crocus or the hardy amaryllis, but the lowest branches of the American sycamore that signal the turn of the seasons.
So far it hasn't been the warmest summer on record. In fact, I will be surprised if this September - usually a warm month - is any better.
Why, land's sake, I can remember in the '60s wearing a new wool skirt or a hard earned sweater (my own money, picking strawberries and beans) when school began in September and regretting it because the weather was so hot. Nowadays, there are many times I have worn sweaters this July and August, and not only because of air conditioning inside.
In the Oregon of my youth the summer days seemed warm and long. As I walked through fields of dry grass, the grasshoppers, with their brightly colored wings, fanned out from all around me. Now, I haven't seen a grasshopper in so long, I really wonder if Mother Nature makes them any more.
The summers were warm and my sister and I slept in a small bedroom upstairs where all the heat went during the day. We would gather around the one window that could be opened about 10 inches, because that was the size of the only little screen we had. That was our sole protection from the mosquitoes that could detect the scent of us from miles away. It was torture to lie there in the darkness and hear them whining away. So sleepy ... but we didn't want to doze in case one started drilling.
A rolled up newspaper came in handy, and eventually my sister would screw in the light bulb in the ceiling (the only way to turn it on or off) and start thwacking away at the bugs that alighted on the ceiling - trying in their obscure way to hide from us.
The light bulb in the ceiling: Ah! It's been a couple of years since I thought of that. What great arguments we used to have over whose turn it was to shut it off. It was usually so hot we had to put a sock or something else over our hand so we could touch it and (literally) "turn" it off.
Of course, thwacking mosquitoes on the ceiling and fighting about the light usually only brought a shout from downstairs. "You kids go to sleep! Right now!"
Well, I've come a ways from leaves turning color. What's it like where you live? How do you know fall is coming? I'd like to know. - femminismo

This Weekend's Work.

I decided to heat up some wax and slapped down a torn photograph of these wonderful musicians from a book I had. I added/drew a woman's face and thought it looked as if the trombone player and the young woman were in some way a "couple." I named the woman "Marcella" and the trombone player "Francis." He plays with the Gibson Brothers Band while Marcella remains in the city and attends business school. She is going to be a secretary and save her money up for their wedding. Will Francis ever settle down, however; that's the question.
The imagination is surely one of the more fascinating aspects of being human.

Mona? Is that you?

Mona like you've never seen her before. The wonderful illustration is from a yoga magazine and don't you think it makes a wonderful, cozy pullover for Mona? However, she might seem scary to some. She's got a great hairband and earrings that are extra special. I may cover her in wax ... just because I've been wanting to heat some wax. The weather has been cooler, so the time may be ripe.
I am still continuing with my art/journal pages. I have been back to work and busy after vacation. Hoping to enjoy a leisurely, artful Labor Day too. Ciao!

From Oregon to Washington

We left on Sunday for Ellensburg, Washington. Up the Columbia River Gorge - a most beautiful place - across at Biggs Junction, to Goldendale and then on for miles and miles through Washington territory to E-burg.
Across the Columbia, on the Washington side, the hills looked as if they were covered in brown suede or nubby golden corduroy. Most of my scenic pictures are "speeding" photos, which means from the car window as we sped on our way. Going 70 mph was the norm for most of our trip.
We met family in the town of Ellensburg and had dinner and then went to the "bed and breakfast" my sister operates when family visits. She really doesn't have a bed and breakfast, but she and her husband do have a wonderful log cabin. So peaceful there, with only the birds - tanagers, grosbeaks and many, many hummingbirds. (Well, there are elk, deer, mountain lions and bears - from time to time - but the only wildlife I saw was birds and chipmunks.) Check out the photos at the bottom of our views from the cabin.
We went to Roslyn, where "Northern Exposure" was filmed, hiked and climbed in Ohme Garden, in Wenatchee, which you really should visit, and buzzed through Leavenworth. Our quest for a new sparkly wind twirler was realized. Yippee!
We ate and ate and had a great time. Thanks, Judy and Gary, for the fine welcome. Happy birthday, today, Judy!
Now we're home watering the yard and scrubbing road grime from the car. Back to the real world.

Windy, artsy August night

Tonight was the First Wednesday of the month, and at the art gallery where I volunteer there was a great turnout for our eight local artists' reception. The food was good and wine tastings were going on all over town.
The wind blew along the street and flapped the colorful flags outside the gallery so loudly it was hard to hear yourself think.
The farmers market at the end of the street was filled with early, luscious produce and beautiful lilies, sunflowers and annuals of all sorts. The air was scented with basil and tamales and I met an artist from Louisiana, driven away by the lack of work and depressed economy, and another artist who paints toys with other objects. There was one painting of a sock monkey next to a rubber ducky. The monkey was looking very tenderly at the ducky, like he'd either like to take it on a date or for a ride in a tub of water.
Another artist had wonderful, impressionistic fused glass and still two other women artists - sisters - who had jewelry and "totem" people, all inspired by their upbringing in South America, Chile and South Africa. "Tribal art" they call it. Ah, the minds of artists - and so many of them say "We'd like to quit our jobs and do only this." So I'm not the only one ... no big surprise. Good night, now.

Tiger Lily

I've got two "tiger lilies" actually. One is the flower and one the little lady, Tiger Lily, that I made on SCRIBBLER. I love to draw the simple line figures with my mouse and then watch SCRIBBLER make them look almost like actual art.
On this altered book/journal page I pasted a head onto a body - both ones I drew and the software program finished. The link is http://www.zefrank.com/scribbler/.

Once you start, you will find yourself unable to quit. Good luck drawing.

July is getting on.

There's not much left of July is there? Once again I didn't "pepper" the flower beds with annuals so I could have some vivid color in the garden during these last days of summer. Most of the color is from a scattering of lilies, the butterfly bush and late lavender. The purple cones of tiny flowers on the butterfly bush smell so much like honey to me, and the swallowtail butterflies truly love them.
I won't write for long tonight, except to say that I am tired and I long for the week of vacation that is coming soon. After that I want to retire and stay at home and plant flowers and draw pictures and someone should just give me a paintbrush and a thousand tubes of colors - all sorts of colors - and turn me loose with them so I can make art.

Be Gone Ye Dragon!

It’s like a jump off a diving board into a cold, murky pool — when you don’t know how to swim.
That’s what it feels like on the days I walk one mile to work. What am I afraid of? That’s what I asked myself this morning.
I thought about all the good reasons to drive instead of walk: I would get there sooner, my right knee was hurting, and I’d just eaten breakfast and hate to walk on a full stomach.
I thought about all the good reasons to walk instead of drive: I had made a commitment to my health and exercise would strengthen my heart and lower my blood glucose levels, I wouldn’t be using my car and it would help the environment, and I had lost another 2 pounds. Boy, these reasons outweighed the others. What was I waiting for? If I collapsed at the side of the road surely someone would stop and help me. The same thing could happen while I was sitting in the car or at my desk.
I stepped out the front door into a beautiful summer day and stopped. I should take the car, I thought. Why? I went over the same concerns as before. No; walk, I decided. Quickly I took off before my anxieties gave way to the good things walking had to offer.
You can learn a lot more about your neighborhood when you walk through than when you zip past sealed up in a car I decided. At the end of the block, it sounded as if there were a party going on. It was a group of guys laughing and joking over coffee in the back yard, letting off steam before leaving for a construction job.
About a block away from home, on the street that runs parallel to ours, I heard a rooster crow. Then I heard it again. Chickens in the city! It’s amazing how some neighbors get along so well with each other. Evidently none of them found roosters annoying. Or if they had, they decided to live and let live.
When you walk alone, you also have time to contemplate your life. Twice a week I have one-half hour to think about people I love and people I could live without, trips I’d like to take and, of course, where I’ve been in my life and where I’m going.
The jump off the diving board, the jump out the front door – both are like the leap of faith that writing is: putting down your thoughts and hoping that you'll find it both a good exercise and rewarding. Of course it's the happiest thing when your writing gives someone else information they need or want.
In 2003 I went to Italy by myself – if you don't count the hundreds of other people in the airplane, all of them strangers – to meet a group of women in Umbria. I got there without dropping unconscious by the side of the road. During that trip I confessed to the group of women that I had anxiety attacks. One of them said, “Oh, doctors know how to deal with that now."
Is that right, I thought sarcastically to myself. I'd been having these attacks for about 40 years and no one had ever given me very much help.
She explained that breathing in through your nose to a count of four, holding your breath for a count of four and then exhaling through your mouth to a count of 10-12 would work for me. I should practice this breathing to be ready if an attack came. So, I did. There wasn't much to lose.
A couple of nights later I woke up around 2 a.m. and it started; that terrible anxiety.
The breathing I thought, over my panic. I began breathing and holding and exhaling and I'll be darned if the anxiety didn't stop. In that dark room in Umbria, I could literally see the dragon - that for so long had his claws wrapped in my hair - let go and fade away into the corner. I felt so powerful; so wonderful.
However he still lingers in my memory. He hasn't come back full force and I don't want to allow that to happen. The memory of the claws is why I play the mental game with myself - should I walk to work or drive. Yet I know that every time I walk I'm doing more than getting exercise.
I'm leaving that dragon a little further behind every time ... and good riddance.

Do You Know Crabby?

I've been feeling crabby lately. How about you?
Feeling crabby, for me, usually means there's been a shortage of letting feelings out. A couple of days ago I spent some time in a place that does not hold good memories for me: the local emergency room.
I wasn't there for myself; lucky me. However, it is a place I associate with two terrible events in my life. It's the emergency room where I saw my father alive for the last time, and it's the place I brought my mother when she was hurting one night. She laid in a room for over two hours before she was admitted to the hospital. She was then released about a week later because her doctor could do nothing more for her.
I'm sure this emergency room holds plenty of frightening memories for many local residents and even for the people who work there, I can't imagine they become inured to the harsh realities of living and dying.
So, yes, I've been crabby and distracted and feeling a little lonesome for loved ones I still love and miss. Perhaps it's time for a good cry and then some therapeutic art.
Maybe it's even time to write, which has been cathartic in the past. We shall see.
Can you tell where I went on Sunday? There it is: Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach.

Friday's over. Whew!

Well, I don't know about you, but I escaped the dreaded Friday the 13th with no accidents or bad luck (that I know of). Except I seem to be losing my memory. I swear I will have to write down more things, and write them in one place only, so I can live my life without forgetting to attend parties or by going to interviews that were actually scheduled for next week.
I have always felt my memory was poor, due to the scattered quality of my thought patterns. This was something I thought I was born with, and although I try to remember more than the words to the theme song from "Gilligan's Island," there are definitely times my memory lets me down.
I am not thinking it's a serious illness, but my "rememberation" could really use some help. (And I've tried ginko already, and didn't forget to take it, so I won't try that old joke.
I have been watering the July flowers in my Pacific Northwest garden - not as often as they'd like, but as often as I care to. Most of my free time is spent trying to keep up with my altered book/journal ... filling its pages with some random thoughts that won't be too frightening to pass on to future generations.
I look at it this way: If I found a book like some of the ones I'm filling up, I would be delighted. I can only hope they survive the coming years and someone similar to me finds them interesting.
Now I am going out to the sunroom to paint a few more pages with some new paint that was recommended to me. I hope it's cool where you are ... but not too much so.

I've been working on art.

Sorry I haven't posted anything but a journal page for a while. I've been busier ... making art.
I melted wax again today and fixed up a page in my book with an original drawing covered with beeswax. I hope to do some larger pictures. I've been coming to the realization that I'm expecting too much from myself, as usual. Actually, I've just been expecting works of art to come together too quickly without much experimenting over the past few years.
The more casually I tend to approach the "work," the easier it seems to come. So I think I will just have fun with what I'm working on and not take it too seriously.
I'll show you what I come up with. Meanwhile, my pointy hat girl will have to stand in for me for a while.

And now for something different.

UPDATE (in bold): Today I had a total day of fun! I melted some beeswax, some carnuba wax and a few damar crystals (which melt at a higher temperature, and so makes any artwork created with it a little more stable and unlikely to react with higher room temperatures) and painted some old magnolia leaves.
The leaves had been through a Pacific Northwest winter, with lots of rain washing through the leaves - leaving behind the tougher membranes as an outline of the leaf.
I had an old framed photo of a lovely young couple. I don't know who they are (or were), but I'm sure once upon a time they were quite in love with one another. Now they are "Together" in this attempt at artwork.
They and the leaves are affixed to an old sliding window screen, which had definitely seen better days. (The screen seems to me to be a metaphor for life, since it catches a lot of things and doesn't allow them through to the other side. My, my, such "artsy-fartsy" thinking, but one could look at it that way, couldn't one?) I've added some tags to the art piece. On the reverse side of the tag they say something else. You can try to guess what they say or make up your own. I had one friend name the couple: Justin and Crystal. I don't know. What do you think?
It was truly fun. I don't know that it's "high art," but I enjoyed using up some old things I had been collecting and shuffling around from place to place. I wish I had a clue what the two young people's names were. Maybe someone could suggest some . . . in keeping with the time in which they lived. Probably around the late 1800s or very early 1900s, I would think. Scroll down for a larger photo.

Ka Pow!

Tonight on our street there are so many illegal fireworks going off that the police and firemen must be gritting their teeth at all the ignored warnings of $500 fines.
It is nearly 10:30 p.m. and time for bed, because for some of us it's a work day tomorrow. Hopefully the fireworks will stop soon. I'm glad we don't have any jumpy pets hiding under the bed.
Today I leave you with a photo from the back yard - daisies and Joe Pye weed on the Fourth of July.
The plant I called False Solomon's Seal is not that. It has another name, but I haven't tracked it down yet. Starts out with oval shaped green leaves, then has yellow starburst flowers, then pinkish berries which turn black. They are inedible. I don't even notice the birds eating them in the fall.
Happy birthday, America.

Trying to maintain.

I am really trying to keep going one day at a time recording my thoughts and daily 'adventures' in my altered book/journal. June has been a difficult month for me. There has been so much to do and not enough time.
I am wishing I were retired and had all my time to myself. The reality is that I give my time away to various people and causes and doubt I will ever 'own' my time.
My goal, however, is to enjoy each day and moment as it comes. On Tuesday I walked to work and enjoyed the sights and sounds I miss when I drive. I am hoping (should I say 'planning' in order to sound more determined?) to walk to work again tomorrow.
It has rained today and there is more in the forecast, so the experience should be a little different from the other day when I walked in warm sunshine.
It is after 9 p.m. and I was just outside taking photos of rain-drenched flowers. I can't resist my garden. Before that I was eating raspberries from the refrigerator. Deeelicious!
Today I turned down the opportunity to work 40 hours a week, and instead will do my 30 to 35. I enjoy leaving or arriving when I want to. At least, after my work is done.
I have still been writing and editing obituaries for the paper where I work, and it's difficult not to put in the family's emotional words and keep to the general outline of our paper's style.
A tender heart in charge of obits? Perhaps it's not a job for me.
Enjoy the photo for today. It is rain-soaked false Solomon's seal ... I think.

Weekends are for fun.

On Saturday at the local farmers market we found this lovely trio performing. Beautiful, yet sober in their intense concentration, we listened to them in mute appreciation. It was sunny and the vendors were plentiful. Another trio came home with us - strawberries, raspberries and blueberries.
In the second photo - taken today - you can see what became of these wonderful berries. In this blood glucose monitoring-household, two slices of bread will be our ration for the day. However, with eggs, milk and cinnamon the baked French toast, with its hot topping of berries, made a breakfast fit for a king or queen.
I am sharing it with you the only way I can, via photo. Yum!
Add two cups of espresso and I am ready to go. I hope your Sunday started this well.

Longest Day of the Year

Today, June 21, is the longest day of the year. Right now, here on the West Coast, it is 9:03 p.m. and still light out. The picture of the lilies on this site was taken around 8:45 p.m. Still enough light for a great photo.
Yet today was not nearly long enough for everything I wanted to do. The day was long enough for the things I should have done, and for the things I promised to do. However, it was not long enough for my personal agenda.
So I ask myself if this day was a good day, a day well spent. I think it was, since I got a hug from my brother for bringing him home from the hospital. I went to work and earned more money for groceries and art supplies.
Aha! I did get one thing done: I bought acrylic paints to try in my altered book/journals instead of the tempera that has wreaked havoc with my pens and markers. We shall see how it works out. Judy Wise is the wonderful friend who gave me this advice and she makes wonderful altered books which double as journals, too.
There is still a smell of the mock orange filling the backyard and the subtle scent of the petunia basket in the sunroom.
All of the magnolias are blooming too high right now to pick. I want to bring one inside and let its fragrance fill the room.
On a regular basis, around this time - toward evening - I ask myself if I have laughed today. Not just chuckled or snickered, but really laughed. I think perhaps it's the secret - one of them, anyway - to staying healthy. But I feel a little sad tonight, saying goodbye to the longest day of the year. Now each day will become successively shorter and the night will fall more quickly.
Every week I find myself trying to cram more into the days, staying up later and later to finish what I didn't accomplish during daytime hours.
It's not just the days that are getting shorter, but my life ... with so much yet to do; so much to finish. I can see myself when I'm 80 years old, rushing frantically around, trying to accomplish a little bit of everything.
Why, oh, why, don't we believe the "old folks" when they tell us life goes by like a rush of wind?

Children leave home, but not your heart.

On Sunday, June 10, we had a family get together. It's not often that all three kids are here at the same time. Days like these are what I think of as "touchstone" days. It's when you have a safe harbor together, if only for a little while, and you can use the people around you as a basis for comparison; a reference point in your life: This is where I went when I left behind my childhood, my adolescence, my teen years. These were my productions; my unique contributions to the world. These children helped me learn more about the depth of love and the width of sorrow than I ever could have learned alone. When we are together I rejoice in our compatibility and the love we share.
Touchstones set the measure for all subsequent work.
Will I ever do anything more important than the work I did raising children? And did I do as good a job as possible? You would think so if you met my kids ... she said modestly. But of course, like everyone, I made mistakes - big and small.
This month in my altered book/journal my goal was to remember more about the years I was a mother, since all of that happened, really, to another person.
I would do it again if I could. I once heard my sister say that, and my mother, and I wondered at their sanity. Now I know they already knew the secret: Children leave home but not your heart - and certainly not your arms. Our wish to hold them again and smell them, like any mother animal does - our desire to experience the joy and have a chance to correct perceived mistakes - all of that pulls at us. Part of that, of course, may be the desire to be young again and delay our life's mad dash to the finish line.
My kids are accustomed to my "unusual" ideas - like having them sit in my lap for a picture. If you have small children listen to those elderly know-it-alls around you and believe them: Enjoy them while they're young, for the time goes by so fast.
Decide what your own touchstones are and pay attention to them.
(Scroll down for a larger-sized picture of the lap-full of kids.)

The Magnolia Tree

It's hardly the magnolia tree's fault, but here it is again ... starting to bloom. Last year at this time Mama was with us, lying in her bed by the window so she could look out at the changing scenery as June brought forth roses and other flowers.
She grew weaker each day, and yet the magnolia tree was in its prime. Older yellowed leaves dropped and buds formed and began to open.
Marvelously big buds that unfurled to reveal thick white petals so fragrant you could smell them from a block away.
We brought some into the front room and put them near Mama's bed so she could enjoy them.
Looking into the center of them, it was like you were looking into the center of the universe, where everything has no beginning and no end.
But endings come. This June there will be plenty of magnolia flowers to perfume our corner of the world.
The most I can hope is that there is a heaven. I can hope Mama can smell the flowers. I can hope she sees this girl of hers down below, thinking of her ... remembering her still and never, ever forgetting.

Yes, it's me again.

I promised myself I would only sit down at the computer to check my e-mail, and then I saw the comment from "John," who said "Keep on blogging."
Well, you can't really turn down requests like that!
Besides, I know John has certain friends who could make life tough for me if I ever decided to drive through Canada.
Today was a beautiful day and I spent most of it sitting in a room filled with computers and other people - who were also wasting a perfectly good day - earning a living.
Did you ever wonder what might happen if you sold everything you owned and lit off across the country, working in a diner here, a gas station there ... even clerking in a hardware store? Did you ever wonder how many days you have left and ask yourself whether you want to spend them in a room with a bunch of machines just to earn enough money for another bag of groceries?
On a beautiful day like today I certainly wondered. What about those lilies of the field?
But then I got to come home to the charms of my house and paint pages in the altered book I'm making for the month of June. I can open the refrigerator and choose something to eat. I can turn on the computer and ... wait! Am I in front of a computer again?
OK. Now I am going to go back to the sunroom and work on the altered book while there's still daylight. I've had enough of machines for a while.
Ta ta!

Ah, yes! The addiction of it all.

Perhaps blogging isn't an addiction. Perhaps it's merely become a habit to run home and immediately sit down in front of my computer and hope that someone's left a comment for me. I know I have some readers because they have told me so by e-mail. However, I'm afraid that I have turned some of them on to becoming bloggers themselves, and oh, the guilt!
What about the yard? Will it ever get mowed again? Groceries? Will the refrigerator contain only a small bit of molded cheese and a stale bottle of soda water?
If you are like me you might micro-manage every verb and article, fine tuning your blog until (in your eyes) it's perfect. (Is fine tuning a word that should be hyphenated?) See what I mean?
Today at work, because of a co-worker's illness, I "got" to write/edit obituaries. ("Got" means "had.")
Of course, as everyone knows, there is a fine art to writing almost everything, including the congratulatory comments on birthday cards. I had to laugh at some of the guidelines the co-worker had set up for obits, however. "Try to include personal information, of course, but when they include 'she loved her family' - well, duh!" It was hard to imagine my elderly co-worker typing the words, "well, duh!"
Anyway, there may be mistakes in some of the wording of the Tuesday obits tomorrow. I'm sure someone will let me know if they are grievous mistakes.
For now, I just hope the co-worker gets better soon.
Now I must go. I have to try and think of what to make for dinner from a molded bit of cheese, some stale saltines, a tin of jalapeno sardines and sugar-free ice cream. Ta ta!